


a ghost's guide to parenting

by cress_ent



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Ghosts, Just slightly, Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Moral Ambiguity, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Pre-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Relationship Study, and either works, fundy is such a sad character, in the last two parts, it's just a bunch of snapshots throughout time, schlatt and wilbur in the past can be interpreted as platonic or romantic, since ghostschlatt doesn't actually exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:54:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28554966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cress_ent/pseuds/cress_ent
Summary: a ghost’s guide to parenting a shapeshifter, by wilbur soot (and j. schlatt)1. if your human child suddenly becomes a fox, don’t panic.2. single parenting isn’t easy. (having friends helps)3. promise him the world4. (don’t deliver on those promises)5. show him everything he’s missing6. (it all gets taken away)7. try your best to make up for it. even if you don’t remember.8. drink to remember. (or to forget)-or, a series of snapshots, stories, and regrets centered around a certain foxboy and his lack of good father figures.
Relationships: Floris | Fundy & Jschlatt, Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot, Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 118





	a ghost's guide to parenting

**Author's Note:**

> // obligatory "this is about the characters they play in the dream smp lore and not the actual people" disclaimer
> 
> // [dream voice] According to AO3 Statistics, only a small percentage of my readers actually leave kudos and comments. So if you end up liking this fic, please consider leaving a kudos or comment - it's free, and you can always remove it later if you change your mind. Enjoy the fic.
> 
> // headcanons/changes to keep in mind throughout the fic: operating under the assumption that at one point, schlatt and wilbur were at the very least friends, headcanon that ghostschlatt and ghostbur both exist, headcanon that ghostschlatt and ghostbur are friends/on friendly terms

  1. if your human child suddenly becomes a fox, don’t panic.



there’s a small fox kit in fundy’s crib.

wilbur isn’t quite sure how he got here, but it’s two am and he hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks and there is a fox kit in his son’s crib. it yips up at him, wide dark eyes sparkling in the dim lantern light, and wilbur sighs. he should have realized this would happen at some point — sally  _ was _ a shapeshifter, after all — but hell, he thought he still had a few years. “fundy?” he says tiredly, and if the increase in frequency and pitch of the soft yips is any indication, that fox kit is also his son. 

great. fan-fucking-tastic. it’s been four months, and wilbur’s son is already a fox. just. fucking. great.

well, at least he hasn’t hurt himself—

as if it’s fucking scripted, fundy somehow manages to trip over his own tail while running circles, stumbling over his own small paws and crashing snout-first into the side of the crib. he immediately starts crying, or crying the way foxes do, and wilbur can’t help it, he lets out a heavy sigh. what the fuck do you even do when your previously human child turns into a fox kit? 

he reaches into the crib, carefully lifting fundy out and cradling him the same way he would a human child — and this definitely isn’t right, wilbur already knows, but he never thought he’d have to parent a fox kit so here we are — holding him carefully with one arm while pulling out his communicator with the other, typing out a frantic message to phil.

_ phil  
_ _ phil my son is a fox  
_ _ dad help he is a fox and he is crying _

before his last message has even sent, his communicator starts ringing, startling fundy and sending him into another bout of fox-cries. wilbur does his best to placate him, but how the hell do you calm down a fox? is it any different from calming down a human baby??

with his other hand, he answers his communicator, flicking it to speaker. “phil?”

_ “wilbur, what do you mean your son is a fucking  _ fox _.” _

“i mean that he’s a fucking fox, phil! i, i heard him crying, so i woke up because y’know it’s two in the fucking morning and my son is crying, gotta- gotta be a good dad! and when i looked into his crib he was a fucking  _ fox _ . and i don’t know how to change him back.”

he hears phil let out a sigh.  _ “thank god your mother was a shapeshifter, otherwise i’d have no fucking clue how to help.” _

“is this about techno-”

_ “of fucking  _ course _ it’s about techno, that kid looked different every time i looked over at him! at least he never went into full pig mode, though.” _ phil clears his throat.  _ “anyways, normally i just left him alone and he’d shift back on his own over time.” _

“really? that’s— that’s it?”

_ “yeah. sometimes it won’t be a full shift — hell, the amount of times techno would just randomly have new tusks or different ears or just, be pink? too many to count. but he likely won’t be stuck forever, will. you’re— you’re doing fine. it’ll be fine.” _

fundy lets out another cry, right next to wilbur’s ear, and he startles, almost dropping his communicator. he can hear phil laughing on the other end as wilbur rocks fundy gently, making soft cooing noises and hoping it’ll calm him down. “thanks- thank you, phil. dad.”

wilbur can hear the smile in phil’s voice as he says,  _ “you’re doing great, son.” _

the call ends, and wilbur pockets his communicator again, hoisting the wriggling fox kit in his arms up into a more comfortable position. “you’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?” wilbur says. as if it’s the answer to wilbur’s question, fundy lets out a soft growl and tries to bite wilbur’s nose, teeth sharp enough to hurt but blunt enough that they don’t draw blood. “it’s worth it, though. all the trouble you’ll put me through.”

“you’re worth the world, little guy.”

  1. single parenting isn’t easy. (having friends helps)



“hey, wilbur!”

“schlatt?”

“yeah, i figured i would just pop by— is that fundy?”

wilbur lets out a soft sigh, reaching down to pick up fundy from where he’s clinging to his leg. “yeah, that’s fundy.” he and schlatt were — old friends, who got in contact again when he happened to be passing through town. mostly they hung out when wilbur was free of his fatherly duties, at least for an hour or two while fundy napped and he could get phil to watch over him. “say hi, fundy!”

fundy lets out what wilbur can only describe as a growl, burying his face in wilbur’s neck. 

schlatt lets out a startled laugh. “oh — he’s feisty.” 

“yeah, he definitely got that from his mom.” 

“he doesn’t like me.”

“he’ll warm up to you; he’s probably just wary of strangers.”

schlatt gives him a half-grin, and wilbur can’t tell if it’s meant to be nervous or teasing. “i’m not the best with kids, will, you should probably keep me far far away from this little one.”

wilbur uses his free arm to punch schlatt in the shoulder, eliciting a startled yelp and a heated glare. “let me go occupy him with some toys, and then i can finish cooking and we can all eat together. sounds good?”

“yeah, yeah, all good with me.”

schlatt follows wilbur out of the kitchen, taking a tentative seat on the couch next to fundy’s little playpen that phil helped him set up, watching intently but hesitantly as wilbur gently sets fundy down in the playpen, crouching down and picking up a little toy — a small, stuffed fox that’s his favourite at the moment — and shaking it excitedly in front of fundy, letting out soft coos of babytalk until fundy picks up the toy of his own volition, excited little laughs and chitters leaving him as he occupies himself with the toy. 

“make sure he doesn’t hurt himself,” wilbur says, and schlatt nods, not looking unlike a deer in headlights. it’s comedic, almost, to see this otherwise charismatic businessman rendered speechless by a child. “and — thanks, man.”

“i haven’t done anything—”

“you’re taking him off my hands so i can cook us dinner. trust me, you’re doing more than you realize.”

schlatt looks towards fundy. “if you say so, loverboy.”

(when wilbur next glances into the living room, schlatt’s holding another soft plush — this one in the shape of a round bee — and plays with fundy, a gentle smile on his face. ‘not good with kids,’ huh?

fundy seems to have warmed up to him all right. that’s all wilbur could ask for.)

  1. promise him the world



“fundy, you know why i built these walls, right?”

he looks up from where he’s re-wrapping his wounds, looks up at wilbur, at his father. wilbur’s looking off towards the sunset, one of those poetic, ‘i’m not fighting to fight, i’m fighting for  _ ideals _ ’ looks on his face. (fundy is far too familiar with those looks. it’s all fun and games until your dad gets the idea to start a nation.) the lands behind them are still damaged, but it’s alright. like fundy’s own wounds, they’ll heal with time. all wounds heal with time. (even the wounds of a betrayal, fundy hopes.)

“you built them to keep dream and those guys out, right? to stop them from getting into l’manberg so easily.”

“yeah! well, that was part of it.” wilbur turns to look at fundy. “the walls — sure, they kept dream and them out, but— well. you were born within them.” an expression fundy can only describe as paternal comes across wilbur’s face. “they were there to protect you as much as they were to deter our enemies.”

“oh,” fundy says. he goes silent, because how do you respond to something like that? wilbur doesn’t press him to speak, though, and it isn’t until he’s done re-bandaging the wound on his arm that he finds the words. “i guess i never thought they would be for anything more.”

“why wouldn’t they be?” wilbur gives him a soft smile. “you’re my son — for you, fundy? the world.”

“the world?”

“well, at the very least l’manberg. who’ll inherit all this, when i’m gone?”

“but tommy’s your right hand man, isn’t he? shouldn’t he be the one to lead after you?”

“tommy is—” wilbur sighs. “tommy’s still a kid, fundy. still will be for a while. and you’re my son — why wouldn’t i promise you the world?”

yeah. yeah, why wouldn’t he?

  1. (don’t deliver on those promises)



“i’m not jealous.”

“you sure?”

_ “i need to step down from presidency.” _

it tastes so bitter, leaving fundy’s mouth. when he knows it isn’t true. “yeah! ‘course i’m sure. wilbur made you president for a reason, right?”

tubbo gives him a look and fundy interprets it as kindly because if he lets himself think it’s pitying he’ll be straying dangerously close to the path his father walked. “i guess he did, yeah.”

_ “and there’s only one other person who could possibly be the president.” _

was he too hopeful? for letting himself think that wilbur would have chosen him? that the promises he was fed as a child, that he’d one day be running the same nation he was raised in, would finally be made good on?

“and whatever reason that might have been, i trust him. so don’t worry, tubbo — i’m not jealous.”

_ don’t think about the way your heart fell when wilbur called out tubbo’s name instead of yours. don’t think about the slow, creeping bitterness that snaked its way into your throat and all of your words after things calmed down again. don’t think about how he’s dead now, gone, and never gave anything he promised—  _

“really?”   


“yeah. really.”

_ lies. _

  1. show him everything he’s missing



“hey, fundy!”

“yeah?”

“i know i don’t say it a ton, but — you know that i put you in this position because i trust you, right?”

fundy grins. he isn’t sure how much of that grin is part of the facade. “yeah. i know.”

schlatt laughs, almost nervously. “good, because, well, the  _ last  _ time i put my trust in someone—” and fundy doesn’t even have to ask to know that it flashes through both of their heads, the sharp  _ bang _ of fireworks and colours filling a space far too small and bright, tommy’s anguished scream mixing with technoblade’s laughter. “well. i just don’t want to deal with that again, is all.”

there’s a moment of tense silence, neither of them knowing what to say. fundy knows — saw how quackity looked back at the podium-turned-execution-block, and looked back, and looked back. “quackity wasn’t happy with— the execution.”

“he doesn’t have to be. he just needs to be loyal.”

“and — if he’s not?”

something flashes across schlatt’s face, an expression fundy can’t quite put a name to. “well. you know what we do to traitors, here.”

distantly, fundy thinks of the book hidden deep in his chest in an equally hidden base, of the plans he hasn’t revealed to anyone. “yeah. i know.”

“tubbo was — my right hand man, sorta.” schlatt says. “and he’s gone, now. and that space needs to be filled. so — i think you’d be a good fit for the job.”

“really?”

“yeah, why wouldn’t i be serious?”

maybe he’s just too used to never being taken seriously. to being pushed aside and protected and never given the space and opportunity to come into his own. fundy wonders if things could have turned out differently, if wilbur knew when to hold him close and when to let him go. 

“the one thing my father never gave me,” fundy says slowly, because he isn’t quite sure whether he should say this at all, but it’s  _ true _ , even if it hurts, so he does, “was trust. a proper chance to prove myself, without him holding my hand, always ready to step in if i showed even a sign of faltering.” fundy gives schlatt a tentative grin, baring the canines that hide behind a deceptively unassuming face. “so. i’ll be glad to take this one.”

schlatt gives him an equally charismatic grin. “good. glad to see you haven’t changed that much, fundy.”

fundy wonders if that’s true.

  1. (it all gets taken away)



“fundy?” desperate, slurred words. “fundy, what are you doing here?”

“schlatt, are you fucking drunk?”

“fundy—” and his tone shifts from desperate to angry, eyes red and almost crazed, arm lashing out wildly with a near empty bottle. it crashes against the armour that covers fundy’s chest, glittering slivers of glass flying through the wreck of the camar van, shimmering in the sunlight that streams in through the holes, the broken windows. (it’s almost ironic, the beauty that can be found in a place that’s known nothing but pain). “fundy, c’mere, you  _ bitch— _ ” 

“hey!” fundy yelps, backing away, crashing into someone behind him — he isn’t sure who — schlatt keeps pressing onward with the bottle, the glass not even leaving a scratch against the shimmering, enchanted metal. “ _ hey! _ listen— please, schlatt,” he doesn’t want to fight schlatt, not when he’s this fucking pathetic, not when he’s this far gone, “just  _ listen _ —”

there are tears running down schlatt’s cheeks. “who’s gonna— who’s gonna—” and fundy doesn’t even know where that sentence is going, but he pushes onward. 

“schlatt.  _ schlatt _ .” the bottle dangles loosely between his fingertips. fundy’s just glad he’s not under direct assault anymore. even if it was an unarmoured, drunken man against someone completely decked out in enchanted gear and gleaming weapons. “you fucked up the country. you fucked up everything. you had a dream and i followed it, but — you ruined it. you ruined everything we had.” 

distantly, fundy wonders how much of this could be said to wilbur, and still ring true.

either schlatt is too out of it to process what fundy’s telling him, or he doesn’t care enough to answer.

fundy pushes forward anyway. “i thought you were something.”

schlatt laughs. it’s bitter and angry and hurt.“yeah— yeah, i am something. i’m what you’re not.”

“what am i not?”

“i’m a  _ man _ .”

fundy knows that schlatt knows. fundy knows that schlatt doesn’t mean it as anything but a commentary on his maturity —  _ you’re not a man, you’re just a fucking kid, the same fucking kid i helped raise  _ — but still. it hurts. 

wilbur sees it, he thinks. the brief pang of hurt that flashes over his face before he realizes, before he recognizes the insult for what it’s meant to be. and shit, he might not be on the best terms with his dad, but wilbur’s face washes over with anger and fundy feels small again. “alright, that’s it, that’s it, are you ready to die?”

“what?”

“are you ready to fucking  _ die _ , schlatt.”

fundy feels three years old, watching his father defend him against some mean kid that can’t carry an ounce of empathy in him. he isn’t sure whether to feel comforted or insulted. 

schlatt looks wilbur dead in the eyes. sneers. “fuck off.” he raises his arm again, starts beating down on fundy with the bottle — it doesn’t hurt at all, and fundy is too startled and scared to do anything more than take the hits, yelling out protests that get weaker with each shattering of glass against netherite. shouts rise from all around — wilbur, niki, eret, tommy, they all blend into one discordant melody of anger, and yet fundy can’t do anything but stare up at this desperate, broken husk of a man. it isn’t until they surround him, tommy aiming a bow — dream’s crossbow — right at schlatt’s head, that he stops, chest heaving with angry breaths. (fundy is on the floor, arms up to shield his face from the worst of the blows, breathing just as heavily.) 

“it ends here, schlatt.” tommy, with anger and steely resolve in his eyes. fundy wonders sometimes if he — if they all — grew up too quickly.

“you know, if i die…” schlatt says, words slurred but sure, “this country goes down with me.” tommy opens his mouth to protest, but wilbur holds a hand out, and he shuts his mouth just as quickly. schlatt’s voice breaks, and it cracks, and it dances from angry to desperate. “i had everybody turn on me. in my time of need, everybody left.” 

an unsteady hand lifts the remnants of the bottle, pointing towards quackity.“you left me. tubbo — he left me. fundy, even fucking fundy left me—” and quackity shouts out in protest, and it’s like the dam unleashes, everyone yelling at schlatt and giving them every fucking reason that they want him gone. 

(fundy can’t make out a single coherent threat, or promise, or yelled out remark. just schlatt, looking towards him, a broken, defeated look in his eyes, and the words spoken so quietly yet clearly, branding themselves into fundy’s brain — “fundy— don’t kill me— i’m scared of death.”)

it’s still like this, this horrid amalgamation of yelling and anger and desperation and fear and confusion, when schlatt looks fundy dead in the eyes. when his eyes roll back into his head, and he collapses, falling onto the floor of the van. 

the shouts that were once directed at schlatt turn concerned. “did he just have a heart attack?” tubbo asks, voice riddled with disbelief. no one has an answer, but an air of tentative victory starts to fill the small room.

(fundy wonders if the pang of grief in his chest is even allowed, when schlatt gave him the world but took away even more. when the last words they shared were desperate and angry and choked out between overwhelming waves of emotion. when the man that lies in front of him now is so changed from the man that helped raise him.)

(still, he grieves.)

  1. try your best to make up for it. even if you don’t remember. 



“am i doing something wrong?” 

it’s easier to talk to schlatt, sometimes. 

he’s — a ghost. died the same day wilbur did, if what tommy and tubbo and fundy and philza have told him is true. he wears a blue sweater, the counter to wilbur’s own familiar yellow, and has a tongue that flicks with sharp wit, and remembers about as much as wilbur does. he understands what it’s like — to be dead, to only remember half of your life, the sharp, aching pain in your chest at any memory that’s anything less than happy. 

it’s easier, wilbur thinks, to not have to dance around things you don’t remember and consequences you can’t escape. and maybe that’s shitty of him, but — he doesn’t, can’t, bring himself to think otherwise. 

“huh?”

“with— fundy. am i doing something wrong?”

schlatt hums softly — he’s always had this habit, wilbur thinks, memories hidden behind a hazy fog, scared to reach through and pierce the veil for the fear the memories will pierce him back. “i don’t— i don’t really know. you don’t remember a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, right? so— maybe,” and something flashes in his eyes, and wilbur knows that schlatt cared more for quackity and tubbo and even wilbur’s own son than he let on, “maybe — you’ll have to deal with consequences for actions you don’t remember taking.”

“but if i don’t remember them—”

“they still happened, will.” schlatt is — more alone than wilbur is. people tell him he was a bad guy when he was alive, that he did awful things, that he was a villain and a horror and left them in ruins, but they still talk to him. no one has talked to schlatt, aside from him, in days. “everyone else remembers.”

wilbur is — frustrated. he doesn’t like feeling emotions that aren’t happy ones, because it always manifests in some sort of aching in his chest that takes hours to fade, but he can’t help it. he’s frustrated. “but if i don’t know what i did, how the hell am i supposed to make up for it? i want to— be a good dad for fundy, but i can’t fucking do that if i don’t know what i did wrong in the first place! i just—” he lets out an ugly sob, an angry cry, “i just want to be there for him.”

schlatt laughs, bitter and dry. “trust me. i know the feeling. but we can only give so much as they’ll take, wilbur.” 

“and if they don’t take anything?”

“well.” schlatt looks at him, and wilbur hates how piercing his gaze can be. even as a ghost. “we did something to deserve it, probably.”

  1. drink to remember. (or to forget)



“i wish i could have walked him down the aisle.”

“we’re not even supposed to be here, and you want to fantasize about walking— no, floating, because you’re a fucking  _ ghost _ — floating your son down the aisle on his wedding day?”

“yeah.”

a heavy sigh. “one day you’re just going to melt or get chased out and i’m going to laugh.”

“you’d follow me.”

another sigh, this one not as heavy. “yeah. yeah, i would.”

“you remember fundy, right?”

“i remember a lot of people, will. things get fuzzy when i try and figure out why they hate me, though.”

“so you do remember him.”

“yeah, i remember your kid. why?”

wilbur hesitates, the way he does whenever he’s about to say something he doesn’t fully want to. “did he ever tell you?” he isn’t quite sure where that sentence leads — about the wedding? about all the built up little issues that ended up coming between them? about his dreams? about _his_ _dream_? 

too many questions, never enough answers. 

schlatt doesn’t answer for a while. “yeah. yeah, he did.”

“oh.” wilbur laughs, but it’s nervous and desperate and does almost nothing to cover up the regret and the pain coursing through his veins. “it sucks that we can’t really drink, as ghosts.” 

“drunk ghosts at a wedding — that’d be a sight.”

at the end of this long, stretching hall, peering down from where they hover in the rafters, wilbur thinks he can see fundy, tears in his eyes but a smile on his face as he gives his vows. “yeah,” he says, and he wonders if he’d have gotten to walk fundy down the aisle even if hadn’t, y’know, died, (and the answer is probably no) (but wilbur doesn’t want to think about it) “that’d be a sight, alright.” 

**Author's Note:**

> this fic !!! this fic has been in the works for a LONG time and is probably the most,, unconventional fic i've ever written, at least with regards to format and the non-linear nature of the narrative. it's definitely one of my favourites, though - fundy's character is such a neat one to study especially with the knowledge that he's motivated by just receiving affection and appreciation by _any_ authority figure. i wanted to take a look at how that, plus his rocky relationship with wilbur, could affect any other things as we interpret the events of the smp back into the 'past' and forward into the 'future'. 
> 
> tldr; sad fox boy is sad. relationships can be messy. people are complex and morally grey and are never entirely Good or Bad. 
> 
> thank u for reading!


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